🏮🎏Lots of fun over the week at Blossoms celebrating Chinese New Year! The children together with the educators and parents have been participating in various culture activities such as dragon dance, learning greetings and songs in Mandarin, dancing to traditional music, as well as the use of chopsticks! Children are further extending their knowledge and understanding of other cultures through these activities. Xin Nian Kuai Le to all Chinese families and communities!🏮🍜🥢🎎

My students have been flipping for these flip books. I have been making them for each topic to supplement my guided readers as a reinforcement tool. My kids now beg for them each week and now desire to take them home and read to their families. So I added a spot for their parents to sign after they’ve read them to their parents. They return them for a little treat. I get almost all of them returned and the parents even look forward to them too. The last of the flip books is for the students to add their own key detail to the text. Great for sight word practice too!

👩🏼‍🔬👨🏽‍🔬 Chemical sciences at its finest! We made slime. Lots and lots of different kinds of slime, but this was their favourite! Thank you so much to @continuousclassroom for sharing the gloo slime with me. It worked a treat and it’s super easy! #slime#science#experiments#glitterfordays#iteachtwo

Our Penrith Centre Open Day was a success! Families enjoyed a morning of family entertainment galore with face painting, a magic show, arts and crafts and a delicious BBQ. #youngacademics#earlylearning#penrith

Classes finish up this coming week and each student will get the NEW #certificate . I've always given them an autograph card, or magnet on the last class, but classes and concerts are SO different ... It's about time I give them something new 😉 to celebrate their accomplishments 👊💥... I'll save the autograph cards for shows. 🎵🕺💃 💥New Classes Start up the week of Feb 26 💥Next Concert is March 10th at Mount Pleasant CC

@kidlitexchange #partner
Do you have kids that are AFRAID of a million things?! When I Was A Child I Was Always Afraid by @cascio_books is a GREAT book for my kids! ✨They are constantly saying they hear something or see a shadow at bedtime! Michael Cascio really touched on everything from shadows of trees, attics, storms, basements, noises etc. He covers it in this book! It is sweet how the boy says he will always remember what his dad taught him on that day. I loved the last page. ✨
The rhyming and flow of the words was noticed right away by my kindergartener.
The illustrations are exciting and have a lot of detail! Great compliments to Bentley Wong @stashnyc ✨This book will be pulled out during our next nighttime issue for sure! Thank you to the @kidlitexchange for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own. .
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#thesmilelines#childhood#fears#bedtimestories#goodnight#readaloud @mascotbooks

It’s wonderful to target brain foods to improve focus and sustained attention for your child. I ❤️ the 7 brain boosting foods listed in this chart by Web MD 👍👍 For children who are picky eaters it’s great to use a multivitamin that has purer and less synthesized ingredients.
1️⃣ I like using the Smarty Pants Vitamins with my own daughter. It uses forms of the b vitamins that are more easily absorbed by the body. The only drawback is the sugar in the gummies( I wipe half off before giving)
2️⃣ I also, always use a probiotic( I use prokids by Hyperbiotics which is a tiny pearl. but for infants and toddlers Probionix and klare’s Therabiotics are terrific ) to keep the gut microbes healthy.
3️⃣Many mom’s of picky eaters also like using the Juice Plus Gummies( or capsules to add in to foods). Check out em Hussey @littleeatsandspeaks for more on this.

👑Cardboard Tube Castle👑
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We wanted to join in on the cardboard tube fun over at @get.creative.with this week, so we decided to turn an empty tea box and some toilet paper rolls into a castle. •
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After looking at a few castle pictures, Little C picked out some paint colors and we got to work! Clearly this crazy girl had way too much fun dabbing away at the castle walls. 😁💕 To see the finished castle, check out our previous post!

It’s Sunday! And before we start the new school week I wanted to share what my preschoolers have been busy learning last week and wille be learning for the next 25 weeks 😉 I have implemented, as a part of my preschool program, “the letter of the week” through the Jolly Phonics program - we don’t follow the program word for word (we start with A and finish with Z) this aims to allow for the children to get a taste of aspects of Kindy life! Having completed my final Primary placement in a Kindergarten class at the beginning of last year, I believe it to be so important that we close that big jump a little & allow for preschoolers to explore a little bit of big school in a smaller bite! Last week we started with the letter Aa and man am I the proudest teacher - all week I could hear them singing “A, A ants on my arm” 😂 And when I told them that they now knew their first word, you should’ve seen their faces 😍 The tracing of letters also adds a valuable part to this learning, as it begins to form the skills for learning to write! Its only been 2 weeks since official transition and I am totally amazed by their desire to learn and persistence even when a task becomes difficult 🌟 #teachersofinstagram#teacherlife#teachertalk#earlychildhood#earlychildhoodteacher#earlychildhoodeducation#preschoolteacher#preschoolrocks#jollyphonics#learningthealphabet#teachersfollowteachers#teachershare#kindy#earlychildhoodeducators#preschoolteacherlife#eylf

Our Hibernation Station was set up for muffin making. 👌🏻 We have Spring on the mind and we’re ready to bust these bears out of hibernation! After they added a teddy to each muffin, I dropped the last bit of batter on top and set them to bake. This made for a delicious game of hide and seek. ☺️ #hibernationstation

We wanted to join in on the toilet paper roll fun over at @get.creative.with this week, so we decided to turn an empty tea box and some toilet paper rolls into a castle. •
After looking at a few castle pictures, Little C picked out some paint colors and we got to work! •
👑 Little C couldn't wait for her castle to dry so she could have fun playing! Apparently the frogs rule the kingdom this week. We will see if they get overthrown by other creatures next week. 🐸 Apparently these crazy frogs would rather hang out on top of the roof, or inside the toilet paper roll walls then inside their fancy castle.

Splashlings in the sink play 💦💦
Miss M asked for this activity today - first of all with a big bowl of water, which she then decided wasn’t big enough and wanted to relocate to the sink (one side with bubbles, one side just water). Can you tell by her wrinkly finger tips that she played for ages! (And then even did the dishes after 😂😂). I’m finding it even more important now that she’s at school to provide her with play activities at home on the weekend. It’s was ages ago that I first reviewed Splashlings on the blog and she still loves them and keeps adding to her collection! 💦💦

📚 Printable Dinosaur Emergent Reader
I've been making little printable readers like this for my students for years now . . . for both kindergarten and pre-k.
This dino emergent reader looks oh so simple, but it packs a punch when it comes to learning by helping kids learn these skills:
➡ We read left to right
➡ We read top to bottom
➡ Concept of a word
➡ A period means stop
➡ Illustrations match the text
➡ Sight words
➡ Color words
➡ Color names
More importantly, the kids can help make the books. This gives them a sense of owneeship, making the learning even more meaningful.
I'll put the link in my profile in case you want to grab the printable for your kiddos.

Preschool expulsion rates are more than 3x the expulsion rate of students in grades K-12. It’s clear - we can no longer overlook the mental health needs of our youngest! Let's take a serious look at #earlychildhood#mentalhealth & strategies to prevent problems before they start. Join Sarah for our #SuperSaturday class on March 3 from 9am-2pm to learn more!

Five reasons I chose to homeschool. Wanna know? CLICK LINK IN PROFILE. www.thestrandedmom.com
Or you can just see the executive summary in this picture. Homeschoolers are the true rebels of a conformist society. I said that. Me. Follow Me.